What Zohran Mamdani’s Campaign Got Right About Branding and Marketing

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Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral win is one of the strongest case studies of branding and marketing done right.

Here is a candidate who started as a relative unknown (when he entered mayoral race, he was polling at just 1%) and went on to become New York’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor in the city’s 400 year history, powered by a people-first narrative, a distinct visual identity, and cultural fluency that felt fresh yet deeply rooted.

For agencies and brands, this campaign is a lesson in how brand, design, content, community, and culture can work as a system.

 

1. Start with people, not platforms

Most campaigns today begin with “Which channel?” Mamdani’s began with “Which problems?”

His message architecture was built around very concrete, lived concerns of New Yorkers, such as housing costs, public transport, affordability, etc. His campaign raised these concerns in simple yet memorable phrases like “Freeze the Rent” and “Fast & Free Buses.”

Analyses of his win consistently describe it as values-driven, people-powered campaign grounded in listening tours, community meetings, and a sharp understanding of younger, working-class and immigrant voters.

Lesson for brands: If you don’t understand the anxieties, aspirations, and trade-offs of your target audience, no amount of optimization will compensate. Start with human reality, then choose channels.

 

2. Own your distinctiveness

Most political logos in the US are some version of red, white and blue. Mamdani’s team did the opposite.

His visual identity leaned into vivid blue and bold orange. The palette was inspired by New York’s street life bustling with bodegas, hot dog carts, taxis and hand-painted shop signs. The wordmark itself looked more like a neighbourhood storefront or vintage comic cover than a typical campaign logo. It felt like it belonged to the city.

The impact was so powerful that midway through the race, even Andrew Cuomo, his counterpart, reportedly rebranded his own independent campaign using blue and orange, effectively chasing the visual language Mamdani had already made famous.

Lesson for brands: In crowded Indian marketplace it’s tempting to imitate whatever is “working” for the leader. But long-term equity is built when you own your brand and its uniqueness rather than trying to imitate others.

 

3. Culture and Bollywood as strategy

For many South Asians, Mamdani’s campaign felt oddly familiar. The visual language drew inspiration from old-school Bollywood posters. Saturated colours, bold typography, dramatic layouts. His designer Aneesh Bhoopathy has spoken about Bollywood and Indian street signage as core cues in the design system.

Beyond visuals, he used South Asian pop culture and humour to make politics feel personal. From digital content that nodded to diaspora experiences, to viral moments that became memes.

Andrew Cuomo repeatedly referred to Zohran Mamdani as "Mr. Mandami".  During a televised debate, Mamdani publicly corrected Cuomo, spelling out his name and saying, "The name is Mamdani, M-A-M-D-A-N-I. This clip sparked a meme-fest and quickly went viral amassing millions of views.

There were also grassroots meme-culture communities like “Hot Girls for Zohran” rallying on social media. His campaign made clever use of free merchandise that supporters were proud to wear.

His campaign used culture used with intention to signal “I see you, I am like you” to specific communities.

Lesson for brands: Using memes for the sake of virality is lazy. Using them as a bridge between your brand, your roots, and your audience’s real life is powerful. Cultural fluency is a serious strategic asset.

 

4. Branding + marketing as a system

His campaign was true to its spirit and consistent across touch points. So it wasn’t just a burst of brilliant but disconnected ideas. Look at the campaign holistically and you see a system.

·         The same colour world and type system across posters, merchandise, social posts, rallies.

·         In communication, affordability and justice themes repeated everywhere, instead of chasing every trending topic.

·         Offline and online reinforced each other. Street posters became Instagram content, debates turned into short clips, merchandise turning into moving billboards.

 

So the brand story (who he is, what he stands for) and the marketing machinery (how often, where, in what format) worked in harmony.

Lesson for brands: If your packaging, posts, performance ads, events and PR don’t look like they belong to the same family, you are leaving equity on the table. The goal is to create a coherent brand the market can recognise in three seconds.

 

You don’t have to agree with Mamdani’s politics to learn from his practice. For founders, CMOs and agencies, a few clear takeaways emerge.

Zohran Mamdani’s campaign is a reminder that in a world of templates and trends, the brands that win are still the ones that dare to be specific, culturally honest, and strategically consistent.

That’s the kind of brands we at Purple Phase work hard to build. Whether for a food brand, a cosmetics label, a D2C challenger, or a B2B pioneer. Are you looking to build a brand system people can recognise, relate to, and rally behind? Then let’s start a conversation.